Volcanic GP ends as F1 paddock back in Europe

The threat to the Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks time is now practically gone, as most of the F1 paddock have now returned to Europe. Only Sauber, FOM employees and a few other media people are still in Shanghai.

If you use Twitter, you would have learned of the Volcanic GP – a race to see who could get into Europe first. Jake Humphrey, Lee McKenzie and the 5Live crew were the first of the media crew back, while Sam Michael and Ross Brawn are the winners of the team personnel (Virgin were in front, but their cars ran out of fuel before the end! :P). It is believed that Mark Webber was the first driver back, but he lost his passport, so we don’t know who won there. Jaime Alguersuari was so competitive that he went the opposite way to try and get back first! Whatever happens, it was great fun to follow this Wacky Races spin-off!

Anyways, this means that there should be no threat of teams not getting to Barcelona in time. The cars are still in Shanghai, but they are being brought over by Bernie Ecclestone’s FOM’s cargo planes, which means they are not affected by the commercial plane flight ban. However, there will still be less time than the teams would want to work on the cars before Barcelona.